106. Down by the sea

“That’s not fair,” Beckett says indignantly, when they’ve gone down on to the sand and are building sandcastles under a surprisingly warm afternoon sun. She doesn’t know how Castle managed to persuade her to build sandcastles. She hasn’t built a sandcastle since she was a child on Coney Island and starting now seemed ridiculous. But somehow she is doing it, under the pressure of Castle’s best big blue puppy dog eyes and stream of burbling brainless frivolity. She has no idea why he wants to build sandcastles either, but he’d looked so hopeful that she hadn’t been able to refuse. “Your bucket’s twice as big as mine. And how come I got the girly pink one? Do I look girly?”

“No,” Castle says quickly. “But I only have two buckets, and this one’s mine. That one was Alexis’s.”

“Still not fair. You’ve got an advantage.”

“Yes,” he smirks. “I do.”

“You’re cheating.”

“No, you just didn’t think of it first and ask me to swap.” He smirks more widely.

Building sandcastles is a natural human instinct, Castle thinks, and Beckett could certainly do to be recalled to some fun activities that don’t require thought and do keep her occupied in the sunshine. She’s still a bit pale. He has, however, pulled a fast one. Beckett, being insanely competitive, had eventually agreed to a sandcastle building competition. Castle’s is currently twice the height of hers. He does, however, have a motive to win, by cheating or otherwise. The winner gets the first three toasted marshmallows, and he adores marshmallows. He knows this is very shallow.   He piles up his sand as fast as he can.

He doesn’t notice Beckett sneakily digging a drainage system and moat that undermines all his work, until his beautiful sandcastle slumps into a sloppy heap.

“I win,” Beckett says happily, and then follows it up with a pious look and even more piously smug comment, “Cheating doesn’t pay, Castle.”

“I didn’t cheat. You cheated.”

“I didn’t. But even if I had you didn’t say cheating wasn’t allowed. All I did was install a moat. Every castle needs a moat, to keep it safe from raiders.”

“How appropriate.”

“Huh?”

“Clearly I should have a moat to keep me safe from raiders. Seeing how you’ve got a gun and shield, that would be you. Tell me your middle name means moat.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

“The universe has no sense of what’s fitting,” Castle grumps, and very carefully doesn’t mention that Beckett’s just tacitly agreed that she should be all his. Moats, after all, surround castles. Or Castles.

He looks at his watch and squeaks. “It’s after five! We should get back. Otherwise there won’t be time for hot chocolate and roasted marshmallows. And the fire might go out.”

“We could have the hot chocolate later,” Beckett says mischievously. “Hot chocolate and marshmallows now will spoil your dinner.”

Castle looks disgruntled at this intrusion of reality. “I suppose so,” he says, and suddenly smirks evilly. “I wouldn’t like anything to spoil my chances of eating well.”

Beckett raises a very well-bred eyebrow. “Naturally,” she drawls. “Though I think you should work up an appetite.”

“Oh?”                

“Catch me if you can, Castle,” and just like the last time she takes off running, at full stretch over the damp sand. This time, though, he’s prepared. He jogs after her, not exerting himself, and reaches the house a minute or two after she does. She’s sitting on the decking, tapping her fingers ostentatiously.

“Very slow,” she says.

“I have stamina,” Castle leers. “Why hurry, when long, slow exertion is just as good?”

Beckett mutters under her breath. A thin line of scarlet limns her cheekbone. Castle smiles, sleepily. “Let’s get ready, Beckett. Wouldn’t want to be late for dinner, or too late home.” He extends a hand to her, and when she takes it tugs gently to bring her against him, shielding her from the gathering winds. She looks far better than even this morning, which itself was a vast improvement on last night: there is sparkle in her eyes and a quirk at her lips, which deserves acknowledged with a kiss. So he does, and then finds it remarkably difficult to stop. This is undoubtedly Beckett’s fault. It’s not his fault that she’s softened and curved and fallen into purring Kat-Beckett who is utterly irresistibly pettable and kissable. It’s not his fault that she’s responsive and pressing close and kissing him back. And it is definitely not his fault that he’s addicted to her. He’s blaming all known and unknown deities for that one. Or genetics. Yeah. Genetics. It’s genetics that produced Beckett. They’ll have beautiful children… what the hell? No no no. Not the plan. But a little voice in the back of his head says yes the plan, just not now.

The hard shock of the thought has had one useful outcome, he supposes. He’s stopped kissing Beckett. This is probably a good thing, since they are supposed to go out for dinner. He unlocks the door and they go in. Beckett aims straight for the bedroom and when he follows her he finds that she’s shedding outerwear, innerwear and underwear in a straight line from the bedroom door to the en-suite door which she shuts, wearing only what looked like a very tiny pair of black lacy panties, as the black lacy bra which he really wishes he’d known about hits the floor in front of it. The lock clicks over.

Castle sits down on the bed and divests himself of everything down to boxers and t-shirt, ready for his own chance at the shower. He thinks that he might have got sand in his socks, though he really doesn’t know how. He humphs sulkily to himself that Beckett has locked the door. The humph has barely finished the ph when the lock unclicks. Then the shower starts. Castle draws the obvious conclusion, smiles widely, and waits. He thinks about joining her, but that would absolutely ensure that they don’t go out for dinner.

A few moments later Beckett emerges, sleekly damp around the hair and wrapped in a towel. Well. Wrapped might be a bit of an overstatement. The towel is maybe an inch above the tips of her breasts and maybe three inches below her ass. There is an awful lot of Beckett that is not wrapped in a towel, and all of it is sashaying out of the bathroom and towards the closet. The sway as she moves is definitely studied. Castle is studying it extremely attentively, especially when Beckett bends slightly to collect something from the lower shelf.

And then she straightens up, turns round with a splash of scarlet silk in her hands, regards Castle with a sly, seductive gaze from under swept lashes accompanied by a nibble and lick of her lips, and drops the towel. Castle freezes in place. Beckett smirks.

“See something you like?” she husks.

“Oh, yes.”

“Just stay there,” Beckett orders. Castle pouts. He doesn’t want to stay there. He wants to collect his Beckett and turn her into his Kat, who rubs against him and purrs pleasurably when stroked.

Beckett stretches in a leisurely, languorous fashion all the way from head to toes, producing some rather interesting ripple effects around the level of her ribs, and then shakes out the scarlet scraps of silk to reveal them to be (as Castle had hoped and expected) some minimalist pieces of underwear, clearly purchased from the shop for sin and sexuality.

Beckett stretches out one leg, points her toes, and slowly – very slowly – inserts one foot into one of the scraps. It becomes evident that there is a small amount of lace involved, at the front. The second foot enters. Castle would very much like to enter something else, right now. The slice of scarlet proceeds, slowly, to rise up the skyscraper length of Beckett’s legs and eventually makes it to the top. By this time Castle is nearly dead with the effort of self-control, and astonishingly aroused. Beckett is now quite definitely the Kat who got the cream. She puts on her bra with a completely unnecessary amount of stretching, thrusting forward, and adjustment of the cups. Then she straightens up, and smirks. Castle does not straighten up. He can’t move.

The silk scraps, once on, are extremely classy. They are also utterly erotic. And that unbelievably sexy witch – no, not witch, succubus – is now undulating gently back to the closet. The back view is just as sexy as the front.

“I can feel the creepy staring, Castle.” Beckett’s voice entwines itself into his ears and slinks into his head. It doesn’t at all sound like she’s objecting to his focused vision. “Aren’t you going to get ready?” He is so ready it hurts. “It’ll still be there after dinner.” Not for long it won’t be. After dinner there is going to be some more than mild assertion of his feelings. She pulls out the dress. “Do the zip up for me?” He knows she can do it herself. She did last time. This is just unfair. She’s torturing him. He stands up (part of him has been standing for some time) and zips her up, being exceedingly careful not to touch her with anything more than his fingertips.

Until he changes his mind. He spins her round, hauls her against him and grinds into her. She gasps, and her fingers close on his ass, and he takes her mouth hard and deep, flattens his hand over her ass and presses her in, then whisks the skirt of that very nice red dress up to her waist so he can cup her, then stroke her through the silk, then slip under it to tease the nerves until it’s she who’s hopelessly aroused and panting and rubbing against him and then he slides fingers in and out and swallows her moan and then… stops.

“Now we’re both wound up,” he says hoarsely. “We’ll both need to wait, because there isn’t time. When we get back, though…” He dives for the shower, and turns it to cold. Beckett will have to find her own solution.

Both of them are ready, if somewhat flushed in Beckett’s case and constricted in Castle’s, when the car arrives. They sit very primly in the back, excruciatingly careful not to bump shoulders or knees. They are only one ill-judged touch away from some decidedly improper behaviour.   Beckett’s fingers steal towards Castle’s, and retreat; his toward her knee, and retire. The restaurant can’t come soon enough for either of them.

Good food and good wine – Beckett starts with only half a glass – help. Being on opposite sides of the table helps more. Talking about whatever takes their fancy – politics or travel or movies or books – also helps. By the time their entrees arrive they have both conquered the urge to haul the other out back and find a handy wall. Mostly. The dark in Castle’s eyes and the sparking gold in Beckett’s are undiminished. However, the food is as good as the previous time, the desserts are excellent, and coffee cannot be neglected.

It can, however, be hurried. And it is.

In the car back, it becomes obvious to Beckett that Castle has had a short word with the driver. It was probably of the order of Every minute off the journey is ten dollars in your pocket. Fortunately, on this journey they’ve scrapped the no-touching policy and Castle has a firm arm round her shoulders which protects her from the worst of the Indy 500 racing line turns. So she wriggles into a very acceptable position which allows her to nibble mischievously at his neck and lay an elegantly long fingered hand on his thigh. He can – and she hopes he will – be assertive when they get home, but right now she wants to play. She squeezes, gently. There is an inhalation of breath, and an – er – thickening not far away. The arm around her tightens. She flexes her fingertips, and draws a wicked little pattern. This time it’s a muffled groan. Her hand moves an inch northward – and Castle’s other hand clamps over it.

“Stop,” he hisses in her ear. “No more, till we get inside.” She smirks, and tries to move her hand. Castle brings it to his lips and nibbles gently on her fingers, then turns it over and licks across her palm, then turns it back and sucks lewdly on her forefinger. His other hand has dropped down from her shoulder to flirt lazily with the top of her breast. He smirks just as wickedly as Beckett had, and proceeds to amuse himself by winding her tighter and higher till she grabs his hand and, in default of brute strength, indents the back of his hand with her nails.

When she thinks about it later, she’ll be astonished that they escaped the traffic cops or indeed alive. The driver makes it home in half the time they made it there, is amply rewarded by Castle, whose thanks are profuse but very rapid, and departs.

The door is flung open, Beckett arrives inside at speed with Castle crashing in behind her, and after that it all becomes an X-rated Fast and Furious. Her coat skids across the floor, though she doesn’t notice where it lands because by that time Castle is ravaging her mouth and hoisting up her dress and finding her already hot and wet and oh-so-ready for him and her hands have parted his belt and zip and found him hot and hard and oh-so-ready for her and then he’s pushed the silk aside and surged into her: thick and long and perfect and that fast it’s all over.

He doesn’t slide out of her, simply picks her up and she wraps legs round his waist and arms round his neck as he carries her to the bedroom. She is lifted slightly, and whimpers at his leaving her body, then is stood in front of him, when she realises the zip in the back of the dress is undone. The look in his eyes burns down every sensitised nerve and sends electricity dancing over her skin. There’s an instant’s silence, a fractional pause, while he looks, and then he reaches out and pushes the dress off her shoulders so that it pools about her strappy heels on the floor and looks her up and down again, slow appreciation of her in two scraps of scarlet silk and black stiletto heels, the lower scrap soaked, the upper doing nothing at all to disguise the proud jut of her nipples and then emphasising the lush curves of cream skin. Flaming scarlet silk, lace fronted panties; lace as the upper half of the cups of the bra. Nearly but not quite revealing, and utterly erotic.

Castle unbuttons his shirt and lets it slide to the floor, following it with his dress pants. Beckett’s hot gaze slithers over him as he does, and he grows and hardens again. He simply reaches out and takes possession of her once more, forcefully assertive as he owns her mouth, smoothly so as he presses into her, definitive as he walks her to the bed and lowers her on to it, gazing hotly at his Kat in his bed in his home. It means more, somehow, because she can’t come to the loft – yet, that has to be yet – and so this is the only time and place that he can feel that she’s in his home.

He sits down by her, spreading his hand out over her middle, his thumb flirting at the underside of her breast, his little finger teasing at the edge of her panties. She reaches up to pull him down, and finds that Castle is not inclined to be pulled. Instead he leans down slowly, bypasses her parted lips and licks delicately along the shell of her ear, finishing with a soft nip and a slide over the nerve to make her squirm.

“Let me,” he whispers insinuatingly into her ear. “I know what you like. I’ll lead now. No need for you to decide. I’ll give you everything you need.   Everything you want. Just us, Kat. Just you and me and nothing else.”

She sighs contentedly and completely relaxes, tacit consent to wherever he will take her. He’ll do it right: he always has, right from the very first kiss months ago, perfectly and instinctively attuned to her desires and her body, and here, outside Manhattan and inside a peaceful Castle-bubble, she can finally stand down and be part of a them. Kat who doesn’t need to hold anybody up at all, but who can rely on Castle to hold her up when she needs to stand down. Her hands soften on his shoulders, touching but no longer tugging, waiting for him to begin.

Begin he does, flicking over the nerve by her ear some more, trailing deliciously over the sharp line of her jaw, kissing her deeply but not for long enough, and she mews a little crossly as he leaves her mouth and nibbles gently over each clavicle and works his way into the valley of her cleavage. Once there, he seems to have stopped to enjoy the scenery. A wolfish, predatory expression has crept into his eyes as he sits up, replaces her in the centre of the gigantic bed, and unbuckles each thin ankle strap of the high-heeled black shoes she’s still wearing, dropping them carelessly over the edge of the bed.

“Gorgeous,” he growls, “but let’s not literally tear up the sheets.” He kisses each ankle, careful not to tickle her, places each back down more widely and looms over her to place himself between her legs, his face below her chin, and shifts to return to his brief contemplation of the landscape, leaning on his elbows either side of her. “Mmm,” he hums deeply, and flicks out his tongue to taste. He slides the fabric of the bra across her taut nipples and swollen breasts, and she gasps and writhes under the delightful friction. He carries on, winding her higher, changing gasp to moan only by his playing with the fabric: he leans left, licks and sucks wetly for a moment; repeats to the right; drags the damp fabric across her and has to wriggle a little lower so that he can lower a little weight to keep her under his mouth and fingers.

His hands sneak beneath her (he thinks of his hands under her under him) to unclasp her bra: he doesn’t need it in the way now, and slips it from her so that he has unhindered access to roll and tease and play: tiny pinches that don’t hurt but send her upward; kisses and then hard suction, nips soothed by tantalising tongue; never letting her come down and he knows it won’t take much, wants her sky high and screaming and shattering all because of, all for, him. He touches more firmly, slides one hand down between them and twitches the soaked silk between her legs across her and that’s it: she screams out his name and shatters for him.